‘David Cameron will launch a final offensive to win backing for airstrikes against Isis in Syria this week with the first bombing raids pencilled in for the next fortnight. The prime minister will privately warn MPs that the UK should start behaving like “Churchill not Chamberlain” if they want to defeat terrorism, effectively comparing Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition to military action against Isis fanatics to the appeasement of the Nazis. Details emerged as Brussels was in lockdown last night with the metro closed and soldiers on the streets after warnings of Paris-style killings in the Belgian capital.’ – Sunday Times (£)
Editorials
>Today: ToryDiary: Two years on, a Syria vote that Cameron could win
‘There needs to be a strategic coalition to support the defeat of IS. It is important to recognise that Russia and Iran, as well as France and the United States, are our allies in this. The present Labour leadership does not recognise the fascist threat that confronts us. As long as that remains the case, we in the Labour Party will dishonour our inheritance and will never be trusted to speak for Britain again.’ – Lord Glasman, Mail on Sunday
‘Thousands of armed troops will flood the streets if terrorists launch a Paris-style attack on Britain, under a dramatic new security plan to be announced on Monday. A huge increase in the number of combat troops placed on high alert for a rapid response to a terrorist attack will form a key part of the government’s new Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). The plan comes as ministers step up the fight against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, with a new cyber spy unit to target jihadists plotting their attacks online on the “dark web”.’ – Sunday Telegraph
‘On Wednesday, when I set out the Government’s spending plans for the next five years in the Spending Review, they will be all about carrying on our work to do just that. Because if you don’t have control of the public finances, you have no economic security. And without economic security there can be no national security, because you can’t invest in your country’s defences.’ – George Osborne MP, The Sun on Sunday (£)
>Today: Mark Field MP on Comment: Relying on foreign investors to sustain our deficit is dangerous
>Yesterday: ToryDiary: Ten things to look out for in next week’s Autumn Statement and Spending Review
‘Theresa May and George Osborne were yesterday locked in a bitter dispute over planned police cuts as rows with Cabinet Ministers over the Chancellor’s Spending Review continued until the last minute. The Home Secretary was battling against Mr Osborne’s demands for deep cuts after chief constables produced evidence that their budgets were already stretched to breaking point. All Government departments – apart from the protected budgets of health, international development and defence – had been ordered by the Treasury to agree to spending cuts by yesterday, four days before Mr Osborne makes his Commons statement on the review.’ – Mail on Sunday
‘Funding for science and technology will be in the line of fire as the chancellor unveils the tightest fiscal squeeze of any advanced economy over the next four years, amounting to about 3.5% of GDP. The move will be seen as a reversal of Osborne’s pledge in 2011 to unleash a “march of the makers”. Some of the country’s biggest manufacturers, including Rolls-Royce, have warned of dire consequences for the economy if direct grants are slashed. Whitehall is believed to have agreed cuts of more than £20bn across unprotected ministries, including the business department, as the chancellor struggles to meet his pledge to deliver a surplus by the end of this parliament.’ – Sunday Times (£)
‘‘If you were an airline pilot and turned up at Heathrow on a Sunday and they said, “Sorry, because it’s the weekend you don’t get a co-pilot today”, you wouldn’t find that acceptable. But that’s what we ask our doctors to do. There is a perverse incentive to work unsafe hours. We need to stop that’…‘People told me when I got this job that the BMA is the toughest union of the lot to negotiate with because they can always play the doctor’s versus politician’s card. The BMA are on the wrong side of debate just as they were when the NHS was set up.’ – Mail on Sunday
>Yesterday:
‘Clarke, who denies any wrongdoing, was expelled from the party last week amid a slew of lurid allegations about his sexual harassment of women, the “pimping” of young activists to MPs, drug use and “institutionalised bullying”. The saga has also embroiled senior Tory figures, including Grant Shapps, the former Tory chairman, and his successor, Lord Feldman, who have been accused of ignoring reports about Clarke’s behaviour. They have rejected the claims. The Conservative high command continues to face questions over how Clarke was brought into the heart of the party after a political career dogged by controversy. Amid claim and counter-claim, the pressures on some of the younger figures at the heart of the burgeoning scandal have grown so great that two have allegedly tried to kill themselves.’ – Sunday Times (£)
‘At least the penny has finally dropped that weather-dependent wind and solar are hopelessly unreliable – which is why Ms Rudd recognised that, to provide reliable back-up for all those times when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, we urgently need to subsidise a doubling of our gas-fired power plants. But so far this just isn’t happening… In a new study for the Centre for Policy Studies, energy analyst Tony Lodge predicts that, with the closure of three more major coal-fired power stations early next year, we could by next winter be facing that critical moment when any surplus of reliably available electricity over predicted demand finally disappears. The long-predicted crunch will at last have come. Beyond that will be nothing but a great black hole.’ – Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph
‘Rail companies will be targeted directly with fines for the first time in a bid to stop them that cancelling trains and to punish them for late-running services under new government plans. Ministers are introducing a penalty scheme to hold rail operators directly responsible and tackle companies who pass the blame – and fines – for late running trains on to Network Rail. South West Trains will test the scheme as part of a trial in 2017.’ – Sunday Telegraph
‘The Government is poised to rule out the compulsory teaching of sex and relationship education to children as young as five in the New Year. The news will dash the hopes of many experts and the Commons Education Committee, who want compulsory sex education and broader personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) for primary and secondary schools…Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, vowed to improve sex education and PSHE after the select committee recommended, earlier this year, introducing them as statutory subjects in primary and secondary schools. Sex education is already compulsory at most secondary schools, though not at academies.’ – Independent on Sunday
‘After Mr Corbyn appeared reluctant to say he would order British police to shoot to kill if faced with a terrorist attack similar to that in Paris, the public are twice as likely to say they trust David Cameron to keep them and their family safe (39 per cent) as they are to say they trust Mr Corbyn (17 per cent). The change in Labour support “if there were a general election tomorrow” may not be significant in itself, down 2 points, but the Conservative lead of 15 points is the highest recorded by any pollster since January 2010.’ – Independent on Sunday
‘Ian Warren, an expert who advised former Labour leader Ed Miliband on how to fight Ukip before the general election, said the majority in the previously ultra-safe seat could fall to a low as 2,000 to 3,000. Mr Warren was hired by Labour after the party last year nearly lost a by-election in neighbouring Heywood and Middleton to Ukip, when it saw its majority cut from 6,000 in 2010 to just 600. Mr Warren said: “Jeremy on the doorstep is terrible, they say to me he is worse than Ed,” said Mr Warren. “That is significant. Anyone internally will tell you that Ed was bad on doorsteps.” A shadow minister who has campaigned in the constituency also said that a victory in the by-election will be “touch and go”.’ – Sunday Telegraph